No Tears for the Damned
by requim17
Summary: A look at how Thant Yeyla Carrion became Mater Motley. Meet her former lover, her almost assassin, and the war that sent her into the bowels of the earth. Dedicated to the wonderful Eitherangel.
1. Chapter 1

_**To my secret santa giftee, Eitherangel,**_

I have so enjoyed talking to you at The Midnight Hour. You always have such good things to say about the Abarat and Clive Barker, and I love the positive outlook. Your love of Christopher and the Carrion family has rubbed off on me, and I can only hope I live up to your expectations in the following three chapters of No Tears for the Damned. You, and only you, have inspired me to write this.

I think you are incredibly brave to create your own original character and write a romance between her and Christopher. You took a concept that I would have shied away from and fleshed it out into a multi-chaptered story full of nightmares. It takes spunk—a trait I bet Carrie gets from you. If I had the ability to create a drawing of her I would have, unfortunately my artistic skillz failed me. :/

There is one last thought I want to emphasize. I hope more Abaratian fans take a page out of your book. I hope they share in your excitement. I hope they can take a little of your zeal and let their own creativity flow. I want to know more fans like you. Here's to talking together on the forum until the end of the fifth book! Merry Christmas :]

* * *

><p><em>Coopanni panni,<em>

_Coopanni panni,_

_Luzaar Muru._

The blackened and burned King Zephario Carrion Lord of Midnight crooned the simple lullaby to the tiny babe in his arms. The small head fit in his palms, and the bright blue eyes were closed in sleep. One small angel escaped the flames, and Zephario felt that he himself must be the luckiest demon to ever walk the Abarat.

When the lullaby ended, the infant stirred but did not wake. "What do you dream of, Christopher?" Zephario asked his son, "No nightmares I hope. No fire and flames."

"That is surely what will terrorize him if he must look upon your scarred face."

The gnarled voice of the Old Hag grated from the shadows, and the grey woman stepped into the moonlight, her long needle in hand.

"Come to finally kill me, Mother?"

Mater Motley studied him intently before tucking her needle into her sleeve. "I've come to protect my only surviving grandchild."

"I would never harm him!"

"Then why do I see devil's dancing behind your eyes? Why did flame take such a liking to your skin?"

Zephario stumbled as if struck, and the Old Mother snatched the sleeping baby from his arms.

"Would you truly take the one good thing left to me in this godless world?"

"Think, child, do you even deserve him?"

"I love him. He is my son. I am your son. Have pity."

"No, Zephario, he is my grandson. And you are a husk filled with hate and rot."

The weakened father shook as he felt the love and affection he had for his heir rebounding off of the wall she imposed. It struck him repeatedly. The monsters of Love and Hope and Innocence snarled and filled his vision, laughing. The faces melted together in a cacophony of horror and jeered and beat him.

"I am _not_."

She sneered, though he could not see her. "Even now your sulfurous breath taints the nursery. Leave, now!"

He wrenched himself forward, but fell against the crib. His raving eyes sought out Christopher through the screams of the damned, but his mother curled around him. "Through your eyes, the gates of hell! Do not look upon the child!"

Zephario fell from the room, hobbling forward and hardly feeling the splash of his tears laying tracks on his face. He had killed his family. His beautiful wife. Those sweet, sweet children. How dare the fire allow him life? _How dare I live?_ Tiny, young Christopher. Cursed by his own father into a life beginning with such death. _How long till my selfishness killed him too?_

Then he found the medicine cabinet, and he swept his arms along, looking for the small yellow bottle that held the crushed poisonous berries from Speckle Frew. He uncorked the bottle when he reached a dark cliff overlooking the Isabella. The beasts still haunted the edges of his vision, and as he smeared the paste over his teary eyes he wondered if they were his dead children, taunting him.

The pain seared through him, as if the berries could reach the nerves behind his eyes, and he stepped off of the ledge. He smelled the sea and spoke to her. "Let the Isabella judge me, then."

The pain and blissful release of the visions melded together and he found himself enjoying the whip of salty Zephyr. He prayed that Christopher would find happiness. He wondered how the Abarat would judge his mother if _she_ had fallen from this cliff.

Then Zephario Carrion, Gorgossium's King, Feared by Many, Loved by Few, and Inferno Starter, hit the water and became a forgotten card-reader.


	2. Chapter 2

"We lost the _Beetlejuice._"

A skinny, balding man stood in front of him, his navy uniform slightly damp. He sneered back, "We've lost too many to those damned Day sailors."

Swiveling in his chair, he turned his eyes to watch the training going on below him. These few thousand men would probably be the last soldiers to see battle. They only had enough ships left for one last stand against those _greedy sun-soaked posers_.

"What orders should I pass along, sir?" The lanky man asked, tucking his sparse, thinning hair behind his ears.

The general swiveled back around and spat the wad of venom he'd been chewing at the pathetic man. "You're still here?"

Said envoy nodded, taking a few steps back.

Just as quickly as his anger had flared, he calmed. "Outfit the last of the ships made from the Efreet pines."

"With all due respect, that will take months. We won't survive that long."

"Do you doubt me?"

The smaller man ducked his eyes and shook his head vigorously.

"Then get it done in two. They'll be coming for Efreet next. At least we'll have the benefit of surprise. Even if we will be fighting in derelicts."

"What about the _Wormwood_?"

"The _Wormwood _always stays to protect our home, Gorgossium. Now get to work."

The messenger backed out, bowing, and the General swiveled back to look down on the sergeant shouting out the count in an Abaratian dialect. The men were starting off with push-ups in their training to become the last soldiers in Night's army. They were in a large area set aside and hidden from sight behind the Carrion Mansion, and down below, two future killers whispered a scandalous conversation, unbeknownst to the General or yelling Sergeant.

"I have _got_ to screw her before we leave for battle."

His friend snorted. "As if she'd give a halfheart like you a second glance."

"I wouldn't even allow her a first." He smirked conspiratorially.

"More like you'd be tortured and hung in Gallows Forest before you could blink."

"For the most beautiful princess in Gorgossium, it's worth it." He responded, and was about to continue when the Sergeant stomped over with a glare. Kicking a hand from beneath him he growled, "Pinok, if I have to hear another sound out of your trap, it'll be the whipping post for you."

"Yes, sir." His friend replied for him, and earned a solid kick to the face.

. . .

Thant Yeyla Carrion never left her room much. What with her brothers off dying in the war, her sisters spent an unhealthy amount of time trying to kill her and snatch away the throne. It all just wasn't worth the effort.

Today however, she was bored, so she went to wile away the time near the whipping posts. Since the cracks had woken her up they might as well better her mood. She arrived just as the last few fell on the last tied up man. His soldier's jacket lay on the ground and (bare-chested) he yelled out, "A pleasure to meet you, princess." Her eyebrows shot up in shock, _the nerve._

Then, just before they pulled the knot loose for his hands, he gave her a wink and a smile. Else, that's what the blush on her cheeks deemed it as. The entire left side of his body was covered in bandages, and he could have blinked and smirked and she would still have had no inkling of the truth.

She wouldn't say he intrigued her, but her interpretation left her feeling a tad bit merciful. She called out to Nurse. "Patch him up in the kitchen." She pointed a wicked finger at the presumptuous man. "I like the smell of blood before breakfast."

. . .

Thant adjusted her bodice as she entered the eating room. A long table awaited her, and the guards ceremoniously surrounded her as the small breakfast was brought in. She could have spent these few moments mentally commenting on the portraits on the wall, or the small ritual that took place as her escorts inspected her food for her, or even the slight loneliness she felt living a life so far removed from the rest of her family, but alas, she didn't. She instead inspected her nails and flicked out a piece of dirt. Perhaps she should paint them again? Red was always a good choice, but she was feeling partial to purple.

As the door closed behind the cooks, she slid elegantly into her seat, practicing for the throne. "_Finally._ Ipractically have to fight a war to get breakfast in a timely manner."

She sniffed haughtily and cracked open her first boiled unborn chicken egg and took a healthy bite out of the embryo's head. The coppery perfume of blood filled her nostrils and she sighed happily.

Putting down the fetus, she unfolded the napkin to place in her lap and noticed a small piece of paper that fluttered out of it. She glanced around to see if it was some sort of assassin trap, deemed it wasn't, and bent down to retrieve it.

**8===** (rated R)

It was a crudely drawn picture of a thing quite too explicit for her virgin eyes.

Signed by a soldier who had no fear of the pain she could inflict.

Her lip curled into a snarl and she slammed the scrap into the table. With a flourish of her gown she rose and headed menacingly for the kitchen and that scoundrel. That little bugger would _pay _for laughing at her expense.

Thrusting open the swinging doors she found _him _leaning against the tiled wall. She reached back to slap him, but he caught it and kissed her palm. "So happy to see you again, Thant. Pinok at your service." He held up his bandaged hand to still her voice. "I must apologize for my means of communication, I don't know how to write."

"I should have left you on the ground to rot." She spit.

"Oh Thant, you and I both know you don't have it in your heart to leave your skein-mate in dire straights." His hands shimmied to her sides and pulled her hips against his.

"Filthy pig."

He grinned, leaned over and rubbed the covered side of his face against her cheek. It sent goosebumps down her neck. "Why don't you meet me during sleeping hours? Somewhere where there are less prying eyes."

"When the sky falls, I hope you survive just to die a slow torturous death afterwards." (But she blushed)

"I'll take that as a 'yes, please.'"

. . .

She wasn't coming.

Pinok frowned at the lonely Gorgossium bridge he had been waiting under. Waiting under for an hour. "Damn princess thinks she's so high and mighty."

He dumped her Rufilin saturated drink into the fast flowing river and downed the rest of his wine. Well she wasn't going to get away with it. He knew where she lived.

The soldier stumbled up the bank and back onto the cobblestone street, kicking at an urchin. The castle shed pinpricks of light into the everlasting night, and he could barely make out her tower near the front. They had trained near it often, and he was fairly certain it was the one with the long creeper vine.

He could get up to her window. What was it, twenty, thirty feet? Pigs knees, he could do that with his eye closed. Plus, alcohol allowed you the ability to be incredibly focused. And once he got up there, she would gasp with that pretty pink mouth and she would be sorry that he had to waste a perfectly good dose of immobility. And then he would...then...

"Blast, I'll think of that later."

. . .

Yeyla poked her needle through the embroidery she continually worked on. Her brothers always said she had a talent for it, and now she steadily etched a scene of death and horror across the small tapestry in her lap. A knight of Day with steaming sword snipping away her frightened brother's life with a slice to his head. She sneered. He would forever be remembered as pitiful, just the way he always treated her. Fitting, that.

She set the portrait down upon her vanity and moved on to her open window. The Night was still, and from her window she could see port. Isabella sloshed, black and terrifying, and the stars above provided little solace to the ghastly beasts living in shadowed terror.

Then the flame of her lamp flickered. Or a blink? Blown out of proportion by a bored mind, stirred to creeping madness inside four small walls? Or a breeze, too stupid to die at sea like its sisters? She looked further; did the hallway seem dimmer than before?

She moved quickly, on slim legs that knew stealth after a lifetime of politics and murder. Snapping her embroidery needle from its perch, she slipped behind her door, not even having time to hold her breath as it slid steadily open.

She smelled it first. Grotesque, lumpy, rotting flesh, snuffling about her bed and linens. Tall and thick like a man, but hairy like a beast. It turned, throwing things off her desk, giving her a view of the foamy spit around its tusks, the piggy nose, the small beady eyes. It moved to her window, out of her sight, shuffling its gross weight disturbingly. She gripped her long needle tighter, the fear in her making her tense.

Then the door slammed into her.

It threw the breath from her lungs, almost breaking her toes and bent her double, gasping. His beefy fingers encircled her neck, tightening, and pressing her against the wall.

She stabbed with her arm, quick and nimble, and the needle pierced its eye. Milky ooze dripped down its face, the only tears that would ever be shed over her body. Even now her vision darkened quickly, she originally had so little air, and the strength of his fingers allowed little more. He pressed into her further. She could feel the lump of his manhood warm against her skirts, and the murderous intent of his face could not hide the wanton desire in his eyes. She would be so disgraced in death.

Then even it's piggy face left her vision and she slumped, semi-conscious. He squeezed a few moments longer, then tossed her atop her threads, seeming to think her dead. She thought herself dead. It was in a haze that she felt the beast slide up her skirts, and in growing horror as she felt his hand on her ankles, knees, and thighs. She was alive. And for this—she would have to be silent.

.

When Pinok fell into Thant's room from her balcony window, his arms trembling and curses on his lips ready to be launched in her direction, he was astonished to find a piggy beast with fly-bitten twitching ears ravaging his prize.

He first felt perturbed. _What a waste of effort_, he thought, _something beat him to it._

This seed of annoyance, fed by the alcohol of his drunken stupor, grew into a belligerence. A rage that pulled him to his feet, held his sword with unsteady hands, and gutted the creature where it sat. He stumbled while fitting his sword back into its sheath, then kicked aside the pig with a grunt, able now to see the pile of pale linen that lay prone at its feet.

He saw there the princess, pale and soft in the moonlight, even in death. Her blonde hair splayed beneath her head like a whore's, marred only by the pig's blood. Her skirts bunched around her hips and the beast's hand still gripped her leg in a caress. Slender and feminine. Sexier even if wrapped around his waist. Those legs beckoned him.

Her body would still be warm, as her rosy cheeks belied. He would probably be unable to tell the difference if he continued the work the beast started…

Her eyes opened. "Soldier?" She whispered, unmoving, disbelief in her eyes even if proof stained her skin red.

"Pinok, actually."

If she saw the hunger in his eyes, she denied it. "Pinok. You saved me." She knelt, stood, woozy on her legs and long fingers reaching hesitantly towards him. "Why?"

He stared, deciding, planning in a pregnant pause. Then he relaxed, smiling warmly, pulling her into his arms. "Shush, my dear, save your strength."

He held her body tighter against him, a devious smirk breaching his charade. "_We have many Nights to come to understand one another_."

. . .

Thant Yeyla felt hesitant when she arrived on the outskirts of the soldier's camp. She wrapped her spiderweb shawl tighter around her shoulders and faced the hundreds of covetous eyes turned towards her. She put on her best perturbed face and focused it on Pinok when he finally pushed his way through the crowd. "You made me wait."

He wrapped an arm around her waist and she bucked it off. "Soon you'll admire me for not acting like another one of your servants."

She sniffed. "Perhaps when the dragon king weds a chicken."

He laughed and steered her by tugging at her hair. Upon reaching his tent, he opened the flap wide and bowed.

"This is your idea of taking me out on a date? A moonlit walk from the edge of camp to your carnal-smelling tent?"

"My dear, you think too highly of me." Then he knocked her forwards by a thrust of his knee and swept in after her. Thant lay in a heap of her skirts and had to crawl and roll around quite indelicately before she had straightened herself out. "Why do you continue to where so many layers around me?" Pinok questioned.

"To keep your wandering hands away from my legs." Thant watched her soldier turn and rummage around in a small chest near the head of his bedmat. This was the first time she had visited his tent, and he appeared to have cleaned up for her. She appreciated that. "I thought we were going to dine tonight?"

"Your lips taste sweeter than any broiled shellfish Gorgossium could provide."

"Oh, don't you have such a sensual poetic style?" She replied dryly. "You're skipping to the make-out scene again."

He grinned at her and smoothed the bandages on his scalp sheepishly. "But you love me anyways, don't you?" She blushed and he finally produced the present he had been searching for.

"A flower?" She reached out for the colorless blossom, and it wiggled in her hand. She let out a surprised gasp and dropped it onto the dirt floor.

"I made it from my rice pouch, and a little of the magic mud that bubbles from the Todo rocks."

The ugly flower crawled toward her like an inchworm until it nestled in her lap happily. "And did some of your perverted traits rub off on it?"

He raised his palms in innocence. "It is completely sentient of its own accord."

The young princess grasped it by its stem and held it in front of her face. The living rice pouch bent towards her and fondly scratched her cheek with its course fibers.

"It's adorable." She pulled the half-bandaged soldier into an embrace, and he immediately grazed his lips along her neck. A strong kiss or two later, and he had gotten her underneath him on his bedmat, and was searching for a way through her lavish skirts.

"Pinok," Thant said, stuffing the wiggling flower into her bodice and sitting up, "I'm still hungry for shellfish."

. . .

As the weeks passed she increasingly risked more and more to see him, and Pinok tried every trick in the book to get under her skirts. But he was charming and a brave soldier in her father's army, and she was charmed. He knew how to pull her in with a quirk of his half-smile, and she knew how to keep him running back for more. She believed they shared a love, and maybe they did, but she endlessly ignored any signs that said it wasn't.

Tonight was going to be their last night before he left for the last battle in Efreet. If the Night troops didn't damage the opposing fleet enough, the next to fall would be Gorgossium, and she didn't want to see her home island in flames.

In light of the impending danger, she wore her best live boa and met him in Gallows Forest.

"You look beautiful dressed in shadows, my Yeyla. But you would have looked better had you worn nothing."

"As sly as ever, I see." She responded, laying her head on his chest and reveling in his presence and cannibalistic squirrels cavorting above their heads. "I can't believe you're leaving so soon. I feel like I barely got to know you."

"I agree, I don't _know_ you nearly as much as I would have liked."

She kissed him full on the lips, let him deepen it, and when he tried to steer her to the ground, pulled away. It left him sitting at her feet.

"Why don't you join me down here?" He patted the spot next to him.

She smiled happily and lowered herself down, stabilizing her bountiful skirts and pointy heels with a tight grip on his thigh.

He shuddered and pulled her against him, speaking softly into her hair and running a hand along her stomach. "Would you please give me an incredible memory to remember you with?"

She leaned her head back on his shoulder and clasped his hand in hers. "Tell me you love me, Pinok."

"I love you, Thant."

"Then before you leave, I have to know. Why do you forever wear these bandages around me?"

He laughed. "Because of War."

She turned and looked him in the eye. "But you haven't seen battle yet."

"No, you misunderstand." He showed her both his hands, the left tightly bound and the right-alive and warm. "The half that I let you see I call Peace. My other is War. And when I go into battle it will be that side my enemies sees, and they will tremble in fear."

She put two hesitating fingers on the strips that covered his face. "Let me see."

"No, Thant. It'll ruin everything." He grabbed her wrist and she pouted.

"I'm not squeamish. Just this morning I watched a man eat his own toes out of starvation."

"Regardless, this is not a Night for morbidity. This is a Night for fun." He crooned. "Come a little closer, Theyla, my dear."

She sighed, exasperated, and her boa constrictor hissed while slithering round his neck. She said, "Tell me again that you love me."


	3. Chapter 3

News hit the streets like a flood. Citizens whooped and hollered, and it was all she could do not to unleash a few beasts on them. She grumbled and got her petticoats in a twist before tramping down the spiral stairs and grabbing the first screaming idiot by the throat. "_What in the hours_ is going on here?"

He gaped and spluttered before answering, "The ships have come in, princess, we didn't lose Efreet! The war is over!"

"Over?" She repeated while releasing him. (He scampered off quickly.) She hadn't seen Pinok in months. _Is he waiting for me in that mob?_

The faintest swish of gowns reached her ears, so around she swiveled and hexed her sister. The girl fell on the ground clutching her stomach and still holding the long bladed knife.

"By the towers, what's the reasoning for killing me _now?_" She cursed and kicked her in the ribs.

The writhing female sneered and threw the knife at her in a last ditch attempt. "Brother's dead. They'll probably crown you within the hour."

"I see. Well then I suppose it's proper to watch the sailors disembark and dead be carried in." She blinked, then with a nonchalance becoming for a bored Rapunzel, gutted her sister.

. . .

She retained a dignified walk to Avernus' harbor and aimed her sharp elbows at nearby stomachs to create a semicircle of space as a viewing point. The soldiers leaped from the boats in a mad rush, but she kept her eyes keen for Pinok. She knew that her heart would draw her eyes to him and his to hers. Oh! To see his handsome chiseled features and rough bindings. To hear the deep tenor of his voice and feel his hands on hers again.

And, ah, there he was. Covered in a few more bandages and limping down the dock. A broad smile grew on her face as she skirted through the crowd to wrap her arms around him.

Finally, they were together again, and she could feel him, so real—

"What are you doing?"

She loosened her grip and looked up at him. "What do you..mean.." Her voice trailed off as she took in the eyes and sunken face that were not his. "Pinok?" She whispered, as if voicing his name might change the image in front of her.

"Why don't you check the dead for your precious Pinocchio and let me alone?" He spat at her feet and hobbled off.

As the words reverberated in her head, she felt her heart beat wild in her chest, her breath shortened, and her consciousness seemed to spiral down to her feet. It took a moment to realize precisely how afraid she was. Terrified. An emotion she didn't feel often, and perhaps never had. She could _not _lose him.

However, before she had the chance to calm herself, dismiss the idea and search among the crowds, the trumpets blared and the giants moaned from beneath the boards. The death march had begun.

The second ramps to land hit the dock with a simultaneous _Crack_ and the instruments and wind continued playing hollow sounds, as if ghosts haunted the harbor. Someone lit the bonfire, and it grew in time with the moans and hums of Gorgossium's citizens.

The first of the bodies were carried from the hull. A man on a stretcher carried by two shadowy forms, as if the flickering fire had given the darkness shape. The soldier was dumped into the fire and the chants reached a peak, causing licks of flame to change color and leap into the air. It was the man's soul giving up its last bit of energy for the Night to use once again. The unbroken circle of death.

When the left side of her burned with heat and her feet had grown numb from standing, she saw her brother. Her last brother. Looking like any other soldier whom the dark gods behind the stars had chosen to take. She cared so little, forgetting his name even as royal purple jets of flame spewed in her direction. _There_.

No one could have called Thant simple-minded. She survived this long on the most hellish scape the Abarat could offer by weaving such webs and drinking of the powerful congealed blood of her victims. Quite the wicked widow she made, standing in waves of ash and watching her beloved be carted off back to the ooze and brimstone from which he came. _This is not how it ends._

For all the light of the fire, her skin grew darker; every shadow finding solace upon her body. The smoky tendrils whispered thoughts like the sharp bite of incense, and her eyes, though two, glared with the ferocious terror of eight.

_Don't leave me alone, a cry in the night, of heart-wrenching sorrow and soul killing fright._

"DROP HIM." The shadowy minions of the damned paid her no heed, for truly she encompassed only a witch with a growing seed of power. She tossed her way into their path and grabbed his body from the air, sinking down to her knees with the blood encased Pinok in her lap. The spirits wavered and dematerialized back into the Gorgossium darkness they were made of, leaving her prone, with a mob of eyes and the devil dancing a high jig in the center of them all.

She looked upon the half of his face not wrapped to quell her inner fear and stoke the hunger in her heart. "My brother will not die with your heathens." She said, while beginning to enfold her soldier's body in sticky shadows and desire. "My poor brother. My sweet, dead, prince."

Grief squatted like a fat stone in her chest, and she gnashed her teeth and shouted orders to suppress it. She connived his body into a cart that was wheeled to the castle _without breath cold as death _and she followed_._ And the smoke continued after _with wingless fluttering and mouthless muttering _and frolicked in her skirts, defiling its pristine white with permanent gray and the screaming faces of the doomed.

. . .

When the crown was placed on her head, she chanted the Abaratian magic that bound it to her and her to Gorgossium. She enjoyed her victory, for sure, but it lacked a relish she expected.

"You look sour, my queen." A lanky man with sparse and thinning hair bowed to her as Thant rose from the throne.

"And you are?"

"Your new general."

She bundled up her skirts and beckoned him to follow her as she set a brisk pace for the kitchens. "How prestigious. You must be a very capable man, though you look…" She pinched his thin arms, "…weak."

The small man kept his eyes downcast and shuffled along in her shadow. Fortunately for him, he didn't swell with pride, for she might have smite him down where he stood.

"Since you appear so talented, you will be in charge of the Efreetian fleet. Take them back to their island and watch over them."

"Your majesty, by myself?"

"Yes, dear, and perpetually. Be sure to promote someone else who doesn't have the gall to call me sour."

He croaked, and slowed down, but continued to follow her belatedly. She swiveled and pounded her fist into his gut until he turned and ran away.

Still seething, the young queen strode through the narrow kitchen and startled the cooks working on her feast. She ignored them, and swung open the freezer doors. She found Pinok underneath a dirty tablecloth with ice shards forming in the crevices of his skin.

Her anger immediately dissipated, and she found the sponge she had used earlier. Thant rinsed it, then continued to wash the congealed blood from his bandages and body.

"I can't watch you slowly rot, my love." She cleaned his face tenderly. "And if I leave you here, someone will notice you are not by dead brother."

Then a strange thought came to her. A thought about the odd, squirming, rice-pouch flower that had reminded her of him for all the months the fleet had been away because of the amount of times it had tried to deflower her.

She stroked his face even as she madly started making supply lists. The thicker thread along the spine, perhaps, and she would need her most delicate for his face. Now those spools had been most hard to come by…so she was going to need to order the unraveling of a few of her tapestries. The depiction of the Qualm Ha battle could go too.

Thant traced his features underneath the bandages and let a smile slip onto her face. "This is going to work. We can do this together, Pinok. Just hold on."

The Todo rocks had barely had enough bubbling mud to fill a finger, much less his entire body. Thant had wasted precious weeks forcing miners deeper underground until a bubbling, stinking pit had arisen inside of what was now a cave-like outcropping. The living mud had unfortunately taken it upon itself to kill her workers afterwards, in anger at its slumber being disturbed perhaps. Ah, well, it had been for the greater good. Patches of Pinok's rotting skin needed replacing anyways.

Thant pulled a roll of parchment from its Todo mud, and sat on the wooden chair she had brought with her. The living mud had taken a liking to her immediately—stealing her shoes and running through her toes like a friendly squid—and it's blessing made her all the more excited to continue her work.

The blonde queen started the spell slowly, getting used to the words in her mouth before letting the trickle of magic turn into a raging current. It felt as if an otherworldly channel had opened in the pit of her stomach, and the energy burst along her tongue and teeth without her control. It tasted like twinkle, and it was delicious.

The glimmering light flew from her body and split Pinok's carcass from toe to sternum, then slowly dissected his head before dumping his guts and muscles into the center of their mudpit, like an odd feast. Thant coughed up the last few sparkles, and then the magic ceased. It had not been dark magic she'd used; in fact, it was just an old mummification spell the tribes of Xuxux had used in her father's time.

Then Thant Yeyla Carrion set to work with little more than the sly grin of one who was cheating death.

. . .

Nights and nights and nights passed, but her Pinok was becoming everything she'd hoped for. Dark threads along his legs to match his pants, and bright red along his chest for his uniform and scars. The thinnest peach along the lines of his palm so that you could hardly tell that she'd altered him at all. The soldier was plump with mud, but not quite finished yet.

Thant debated while she searched for another spool of peach. _Pinok never allowed me to see underneath his bandages in fear for my safety. _So, did she honor that decision now and stich him up roughly? Or should she sate her curiosity while seeking perfection?

She decided on perfection. Besides, in the future he would need to take the bandages off at some point, so it was a little nonsensical to fuse them to his body. Beginning at his left foot, she unraveled and sewed while the Todo mud leapt into the gaps she opened for it. The mud was even more excited, now that it was taking shape. To keep it from playing near her vision, she pulled her blonde hair back and tied it with a spare string.

Not until Thant reached Pinok's left hand did the oddity of War appear. His skin had been smooth and hairless underneath their wrappings, but now she noticed the lack of nails, and the smooth expanse of skin giving not a wrinkle. If fortune tellers read palms, then did War have a past or future? Thant flipped the hand up and down, examining it. It was strange, like a peculiar rubber that had only stretched over the bones, but certainly not frightening. He thought too little of his enemies and herself if Pinok had thought War would have them running in fear.

His face was featureless as well. War lacked an eye and mouth and ear. A weird egg-shaped head he made. Perhaps it was shocking to see a creature such as this on the battlefield. Perhaps the lack of emotion made him appear indestructible. "But you aren't are you?" She whispered sweetly, stitching him an eyebrow. "You always did think too highly of yourself, Pinok."

After filling his head with mud and sewing him closed, Thant stared down at the last gaping wound she had avoided. The hollow of his chest lay open to her, and she watched the Todo mud bubble in the cavity. She worried that just the living mud and his skin wouldn't bring back his soul. If she had kept his heart, she could have used that, maybe. Plopped it into his ribcage of mud to hopefully not be devoured.

The moon came out from behind a silvery cloud, and the light glanced off a golden thread she hadn't formerly noticed. It glimmered in the patches that the moonbeams hit it, but when she tried to grasp it, it passed through her fingers. Only then did her eyes trace the life-string to her own heart. The Skein. Her Skein, that connected her to the Abarat and everything else in it. A piece of intangible life and of her very soul.

Thant didn't even hesitate. She sliced her Skein near her heart, and a perfect length fell into her lap. It was golden with shimmery energy, and supple with youth.

She tied it with growing excitement to her best needle. _This will work. This is a life that mud could never give him. _Skein-mates, indeed.

A knot at the sternum, and she clipped the thread. The gold light gleamed once more from the bright cross-stitch, then faded into dullness. The air of Gorgossium went still, and his eyes

quietly.

snapped.

open.

Slowly, the stitched up man got to his feet, focusing his eyes on the woman in the chair surrounded by the stinking Todo mud. The blank side of his face began to twitch and roll, and his second eye slid open, bloodshot and angry and black black black. His mouth formed out of the folds of skin, all teeth and grinning terror. The rest of War shifted into being faster. Grotesque, mottled colors and bones in places they shouldn't be and pointed serrated barbs where they should. Streaks the color of blood stained over him, lending even more to the look of a dead man.

We he was _finally complete again_ a strange howling laughter escaped his throat, and his hands, War and Peace, gripped the back of her chair. His rancid breath blew into her face.

"Pinok? It's Thant, you remember? Your Yeyla?"

Both halves of his face continued to stare, unblinking. Their shared grin, unnerving.

She trembled. "Love me the way you used to."

His grin distorted and his voice rumbled and tore through his uneven teeth. "Love...you."

"Yes, yes!" She cried, "Love me!"

War and Peace smiled again—a horrifyingly pure smile—then ripped her dress in half.

"Pinok, please, don't you remember us? Our walks and conversations?" His serrated flesh felt up and down her body, leaving bloody trails in places. He seemed no more delighted or disgusted at the marring of her skin, and the dead face held the same expression throughout her pleas. "Please, PInok, please." But he found her legs anyways.

It felt like he had rammed a spike inside of her, like she was resting on a skewer. What hurt worse was the eye she knew, Peace's eye, enjoyed her demise just as much as the blackness of War's. "I order you to stop. Soldier, your queen commands you." The trembling in her voice did little to help her case.

No magic came bidden to her lips; her sobs halted any words that tried to form. After Thant had split herself from the rest of the Abarat, after sewing in her own Skein over his heart, she had lost her right to share her love with another, or to seek mercy. She wept as the revelations swept over her, and for the mocking grin her personal monster provided as he fucked her. _The Abarat has no love left for you_ it said.

When Pinok finally left her, Thant ripped open his chest with her own nails. Her blonde hair was tangled and wild, and her eyes held a dark anger that would never be sated, could never be quenched, because they were allowed to feel nothing else. They did not have the liberty to feel the joy the Abarat had to offer. They would sink slowly to madness.

The stinking mud bubbled and popped in its ecstasy, and Thant fell to her knees, pushing the wilted body away from her.

She wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks.

Her very last.

* * *

><p><strong>A <strong>little bit of an odd ending I guess. I hope you enjoyed it. And understood it. And were completely freaked out.


End file.
